


flaming hot cheetos

by spells



Series: diary 001 [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Feelings, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 22:39:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16273814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spells/pseuds/spells
Summary: i'm feeling something, right?





	flaming hot cheetos

**Author's Note:**

> title, summary and prompt all come from clairo's song, flaming hot cheetos  
> huge thanks to elmo and bee for beta'ing this for me. you should check them out at [perennials](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennials/pseuds/perennials) and [livennadin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/livennadin/pseuds/livennadin), they're awesome <3

The dying summer sun has long set, past the skyscrapers and the hills. The heat remains, although it might be more because of how it comes out of all their bodies in an invisible mist of sweat, hair slicked back and harsh breaths.

Kenma sits on a bench, silent, even while everyone else talks and walks around, mopping and cleaning. Today it isn’t his responsibility, and neither does he want to change in the warm locker room, full of other boys. He’s good here, a voluntary castaway, hair in front of his face like the curtains before the play starts. And it’s no big deal, and he’s chosen this; he just thinks his roots are becoming a bit of a burden, and maybe he should cut one or two inches off the tips.

He has his phone in his hands, but it’s locked. Still cold and limp, a connection to something so different from this reality. He closes his eyes and cools off, breathes deeply, all the air in the world. The heat hasn’t gone away.

A notification lights up his screen, white and blue. It’s not alone, in any way - he’s gotten a few texts from Shouyou while he practiced, and while in class, too. He hasn’t gotten an opportunity to reply yet, but he guesses he has that opportunity, now. So he slides the screen open, dashes past different displays with the same backdrop, and softly touches the thumbnail for his messaging app.

from shouyou, 10:05

_ we have a free day today!!!! dunno why!! but my mom just woke me up and it’s ten, so, what else could it be!!! how are you kenma?? _

from shouyou, 10:23

_ just realised you cant reply… your in class… oops sorry kenma ( _ _ ๑ _ _ ꒪ _ _ ⍘ _ _ ꒪ _ _ ๑ _ _ ) _

from shouyou, 16:57

_ class is over right?? do you have practice today?? im pretty sure you do but!!!! you never know!!! maybe it got cancelled or… or nekomata-sensei finally gave into how theres no training to escape how we’re going to BEAT YOU NEXT TIMEEE <( _ _ ￣ _ _ ︶￣ _ _ )><( _ _ ￣ _ _ ︶￣ _ _ )><( _ _ ￣ _ _ ︶￣ _ _ )> _

from shouyou, 19:01

_ kenma? r you there? _

Kenma, who is in fact here, blinks a few times at the text, and raises his head. Shuffles his feet, and exhales until his shoulders drop. Something stirs in his chest, sneakily so, and it makes him a little mad. He wonders, then, if it’s just the heat; if it’s his body, still cooling off from practice, catching some rest and getting itself back together. It probably is. Embers low in his gut, smoke still pouring up, up, up.

He looks down again, mulls over what to reply. A spark catches, and he looks up again. Lev’s sneakers squeak against the floor; he’s running around, mop in hand. Kuro’s talking to Naoi, who flips over papers on his clipboard. Everything is normal, the fresh smell of the cleaning products, the gym slowly growing colder, a breeze floating in through the open doors, faint chatter from the changing room.

Yet, Kenma finds himself unable to describe what exactly is different, what exactly has changed, or even if something has; he just knows the origin of a possibility.

Maybe he’s blowing this out of proportions. Sometimes Kenma does this, gets ahead of himself and makes a storm out of a droplet, a fire out of a spark. It’s involuntary, how he thinks centuries in advance, how he plans all the possible scenarios even if none of them are genuinely tangible. It’s so natural to him. It’s unsettling, and unhealthy. It’s boycotting himself. He ruins things before they even begin. He cares too much, analysing every part of the ground before he takes a step.

It’s natural that he wonders what this tidy, pretty, and uncontrollable pile of embers is. It’s natural that he worries, double thinks this non-existent reality, doubts until his fingertips start to shake and Shouyou – Shouyou with his emoticons, Shouyou with his unnecessary punctuation, Shouyou with no capital letters and very few apostrophes – blurs.

“Kenma!”

He raises his head. Kuro points to the exit, behind him.

“Everybody’s leaving. Let’s change.”

Kenma follows, changes silently and nods to whatever Kuro’s saying. Does his best not to think, not worry, over how he’s feeling. If he’s feeling anything. He still hasn’t answered Shouyou, even if he’s had that opportunity. Maybe it’s best to wait until he’s home, anyway; it’s not like Shouyou’s flip phone shows whether a text was read or not.

They walk home quietly, Kenma’s head down and Kuro kicking at the gravel on the side of the road. It’s not even twenty minutes before they’re home, Kenma first and Kuro another block away.

“’Till tomorrow,” the raven says, grinning and looking over his shoulder. Kenma assents, ducks his head, and closes the door behind himself.

He mutters a ‘tadaima’ that goes unheard, takes his shoes off and heads to his room. His head shakes when he lies down, full force, all the air in the world pushed out of his lungs. He still has to shower, and eat dinner, he reminds himself; he has to answer Shouyou. No homework tonight, though, which is a marvel of Fridays that leaves him impossibly thankful. His head can’t take that much.

Kenma fishes his phone from the floor, and looks at the screen for a couple of seconds. It’s empty, no new notifications, and it makes a bit of guilt mixed with loneliness arise on his chest. When he unlocks it, it opens straight into his chatlog with Shouyou, so sudden he sits up. The same messages stare at him, unwavering, unalterable, and he wishes they would fade away so he could think. They don’t.

to shouyou, draft

_ I’m here. Just got home. Have you figured out why you didn’t have class today? _

It feels empty, uncertainty flooding his chest but somehow not putting out that small, small fire that everlasts. Maybe he just hasn’t said enough, maybe that’s it.

He knows he usually doesn’t even worry this much over a text because no one ever gets it quite right, there’s no such thing as a flawless text message. He usually doesn’t care, he usually barely texts. However, it’s his only way to talk with the redhead, and it seems that he has to get his point, whatever it is, across perfectly.

to shouyou, draft

_ I’m here. Just got home and, yeah, I’m fine, had practice. Don’t be so confident on winning, you haven’t managed that much yet. Did you find out why you didn’t have class today? _

The completion, the fulfilment doesn’t come, but Kenma knows it’s as good as it’ll get. So he presses send, locks his phone and breathes out.

He’s no clue what he’s feeling. If he’s feeling something - things aren’t that different from before, after all. It’s a terrifying prospect, not knowing yourself, doubting yourself, and being unable to control your relationships with others. He likes Shouyou, he knows that much; the boy is one of his best friends, probably. They might not know each other for long, but with how much they’ve texted throughout the past few months, and how fun spending time together is, there’s no doubt on that.

He asks himself whether he just likes Shouyou. Whether he’s finally…

A stern wave flops over Kenma’s embers, and he stands up. He has to cook something, shower, and hopefully get to bed early. He feels tired, a bit drained, burnt through like incense. Nothing much. Hungry, probably. He tosses his phone to the floor, and it thumps mutely against the carpet.

Kenma breathes in, and opens a window. Heads off to the kitchen, and thinks of what he’ll have for dinner. The heat is fading away.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! kudos, comments and bookmarks are very appreciated!  
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/karasunya)  
> [tumblr](http://gymthree.tumblr.com/)


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